Hoffman Family Gold

I told you where to put your sluice, over here.

Everybody's telling me to put it like this.

After weeks of butting heads...

You've been stepping on my toes the whole project.

No, I haven't.

And unexpected setbacks

the Hoffmans are looking forward.

Is that what I think it is?

- I think it's a drift, isn't it? - Yeah.

But with just the Holy Roller running,

they'll need Hunter's second plant

to hit their $1.75 million target.

We're firing the Black Pearl, everybody clear.

Will the Black Pearl's maiden run

help them sail towards their season-long

1,000-ounce gold?

- It's rolling. - She rolls.

Look at that little patch of gold right there.

That's money in the bank.

Or will it sink them?

Sparky, you've gotta talk to me.

Hey, we got water gushing out in the pan.

You gotta be kidding me.

With the Holy Roller's current gold production

well short of the 100-ounce average

the Hoffmans are aiming for this week.

And the Black Pearl, one part shy of being operational,

Hunter and Framer set out to find it.

Two running plants will mean double the production.

Last piece of the wash plant,

we're really close

I honestly didn't think we were gonna be able to get this far.

To get the Black Pearl to this point,

Hunter and his team had to cut the wash plant into three pieces

to transport it 80 miles across an unforgiving road.

I look good over here. How are you guys looking?

And then reassemble the 80,000-lb behemoth on site

with limited parts and tools.

That's it!

We got stuff done we didn't think we were gonna be able to.

It's a big plant, requires a lot of water.

You know it didn't come with a pump.

If I don't have enough water, I can't run it at all.

So, I called Nate.

He's been a huge lifesaver for me this season.

And he called around. He found me a pump,

and I'm hoping that this is gonna be just enough

to get us enough water for the Black Pearl.

There she is.

Right now, it's my only option

and, we're gonna see if we can make it work.

- Hunter, man, what's going on? - How's it going?

- How are you? - Good to see you.

- Good. - There she is.

So we pulled it off.

- Yeah, it's no Barco pump, you're right. - -No.

But do you know what it takes to find a pump in Nome?

- This one's gonna cost you. - Yeah, I figured.

Do you know any specs on this, like the water?

You're gonna have to dial in. Depends on what you got for nozzle.

But it's gonna work.

- They've got a suction line too. - Okay.

So that will marry up right here.

You're gonna have to change your discharge phalange,

but other than that, I mean, it's self-priming, it's a good pump.

It should be everything you need right now.

I mean, right now, beggars can't be choosers.

I don't really have too many options.

- You wanna crank it up? - Yeah.

- You hold the Murphy switch. - Yeah.

- The only downside is it's a small pump. - Yep.

So you might struggle with water supply a little bit.

Well, Hunter, what do you think? You want it?

Hey, well it runs, and it's a pump, so...

- It's a pump. - It's better than what I had, so...

- All right, let's get it loaded. - Let's do it.

You know, your Achilles' heel in mining is your water.

You have to have enough water to make the sluices work properly.

We need this to run, so we'll see what happens.

- All right, are you ready? - Yeah.

These are the last pieces I needed to get the Black Pearl running.

I got a pump, so I'm hoping this weekend

we'll get everything wrapped up.

All right, what do I owe you?

We'll talk later. Just get that plant running.

If it all works out, maybe I can pay you in gold.

I never turn down gold, you know.

We're both involved in this thing now.

- You've had to help me so many times, you know. - Exactly.

Actually I'm a little bit nervous.

It's a good pump, but it's old.

It's a last-minute deal.

Hopefully this thing runs like it's supposed to.

There we go.

That's it, let's roll.

- Nate, thanks for saving my ass again. - Any time, bud.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

You know, hopefully in a day or two we're up and running.

We're coming out nice and clean. They look good.

Back at the mine,

the Holy Roller hits its midday stride

as it processes material.

Last week was really, really good.

Big picture, we're still way behind where we need to be.

We just plain and simple need to get more gold.

We need 100 ounces a week to hit our goal.

Ten-four, will do, Todd.

I need Hunter to get the Black Pearl up and running.

And while that's happening,

I need to put the best pay dirt I can

through the Holy Roller,

and just keep grinding as much gold as we can get.

We got a limited amount of pay dirt right now.

We will run out eventually

if we do not find some more quick.

But at the end of the day we need the mother lode.

We wanna hit it.

I have pulled straight up to you, port side in.

Perfecto. Thanks.

Across the claim on the ancient riverbed cut,

Andy and the rest of the crew work to keep the plant fed.

We had a lot of high hopes coming into this season,

and we still do.

But we have a long ways to go.

We wanna get 1,000 ounces,

so I'm gonna keep stripping pay,

just keep going.

Holy crap.

It's just solid ice, the side of that hill.

That is really cool.

And it shows we're on the gold.

Hey, Todd, if you've got a second, come down here to the cut

I've got something to show you.

That's 10-four.

Holy crap, look how big that sucker is.

Is that what I think it is?

- I think it's a drift, isn't it? - Yeah.

That's a tunnel.

It's a big tunnel.

I've exposed an old drift.

When the old timers were in there

digging with pick and shovel

this had to have been really rich ground

for these guys to be doing this all by hand.

What Andy has unearthed are the remains

of what's known as a miner's drift.

A subterranean tunnel built wide enough

so that several miners could pan long sections

of promising pay dirt well below the surface.

For the miners who worked this claim 100 years ago,

this was laborious backbreaking work

done with the technology of their time,

which was mostly pickaxes and shovels.

It looks like this drift filled up with water and soil,

and it froze.

We've been digging into it from the side.

That don't look like a little hole.

That was, like...

It's like a family of miners could go in it.

If you find a tunnel

or a guy picked his way through,

we take this very, very serious.

And when we've ever found any of these,

it's always been the best gold we ever had.

So, the old timers, they had to go for big gold

because gold was only 20, 30 bucks an ounce.

So the amount of gold that they had to dig up by hand,

was unbelievable.

Hey, Thurber, come on down. I want you to have a look at this.

An old pale.

There's some more stuff up there. What is that?

Dude, they were living up in here.

This was probably full of gold.

You fill this up with gold and then take it out.

I don't know.

The old timers, they investigated.

They started a little tunnel,

if it started paying off,

they made a bigger tunnel, and a bigger tunnel.

And either that guy was a fat guy like me,

or he had a hell of a lot of gold in there.

- I'll go with the gold. - Yeah, me too.

Thurber, see that tunnel?

That's crazy.

I need you to take a sample of that.

- You can see where he was carving in. - Yeah.

- You see how he made his tunnel wide? - Sure.

- He was lugging that stuff directly on the side. - Yep.

It's kinda cool. A hundred-plus years ago,

someone walked around with that bucket

and for whatever reason, they stopped there.

We're gonna continue on.

So... it kinda gets you.

If you don't get it, it's kinda hard to explain

but, you know, why did they quit?

Did they die out here?

I mean, it's such a huge story.

To be part of it

yeah. It's pretty big.

I could go up right here.